The Minister of Health is speaking to Romanians from all over the country about one of the extremely important measures that has been under discussion for a very long time, and which would have a major impact on millions of Romanians, namely the transfer of medical units under the ministry that he leads, to the local authorities.
The Minister of Health talks below about an extremely important measure taken now for the hospitals in Romania, but also what should be done now by the owners of the hospitals, and what should be done in the future so that people can benefit from high quality medical services in Romania whenever they need.
"The Ministry currently has almost 70 institutions under its control, and for the first time in a very long time we are making an inventory of these institutions from the point of view of the infrastructure of the buildings, the renovations or rehabilitations that have taken place in the last 30 years, or equipment, so we are making an inventory because we have to make a medium-term plan here as well so that we can repair them.
We have to equip them in a way, not necessarily unitary, but adapted to the needs. After all, what has been happening for many years in which a hospital requests, for example, an investment for an MRI or a CT scan, is a specific matter, not a systematic one. There were even recent broadcasts in the press showing the unchanged hospital infrastructure in some well-known hospitals in Bucharest.
It is clear that the transition to local authorities was a good thing. From here until we discuss a type of pyramidal subordination, I don't think it's a very good idea. A hospital must be managed independently, regardless of whether it is at the ministry, or at a local authority, or at another institution, because there are other public institutions that own hospitals, not just us.
There must be a coverage of expenses related to operation and investigation, of treatments for patients, but there must also be a development plan for the respective hospital in partnership with the owner of the hospitals. Intervention in a crisis situation can certainly exceed this independence that any hospital can have in its development.
Independence does not mean lack of responsibility, it means responsibility towards patients. We have institutions that accredit the quality of medical services, we also have at our disposal the sanitary inspection that can establish whether the sanitary and hygienic conditions provided in hospitals are appropriate, there are other control mechanisms."
